The Free Toaster

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The Free Toaster

The Free Toaster is your best resource at the intersection of marketing, lending, and fintech. We deliver news, data, and insights to help you acquire more customers.

  1. E022 - Jason Steele, Credit Card and Award Travel Expert

    4D AGO

    E022 - Jason Steele, Credit Card and Award Travel Expert

    We sit with credit card expert Jason Steele about what's happening behind the scenes in the industry. Jason shares how he went from tech work to becoming a respected credit card authority who writes for major publications and runs CardCon, the credit card industry conference.   We discuss: The "Coupon Book Problem" - Premium cards are becoming more complex with endless small benefits ($6 at Dunkin', $10 off wireless) that frustrate consumers. Jason explains why this creates space for simpler card offerings that deliver clear value. What Drives Card Choices - Discover why exclusivity and status perks (like early access to products or "skip-the-line" privileges) might be more powerful than cash back for attracting high-value customers. Will shopping for cards change in an AI future? - The conversation explores whether consumers are moving away from traditional comparison sites toward trusted influencers and whether AI could personalize recommendations based on spending patterns.   Also: Why metal cards might affect spending behavior How credit unions approach card benefits differently The power of word-of-mouth in card marketing What makes people share positive card experiences   And remember: Jason conference — CardCon — happens May 6-8 in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Use code "TOASTER" for $50 off registration at cardconexpo.com.   Where to find Jason: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-steele/   ***** A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:   Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo! https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apr A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:   New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com   Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter:www.thefreetoaster.com/   Want to chat with Carlos Caro, our host? Find him at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

    52 min
  2. E021 - Tim Li, CEO at LendAPI

    MAR 24

    E021 - Tim Li, CEO at LendAPI

    LendAPI lets you create application flows, credit decision engines, and complete lending products through simple drag-and-drop tools—all without hiring engineers or spending millions. You can build and launch lending products quickly and efficiently, then use a working product to raise venture capital. Even non-financial businesses like boat dealerships are using it to replace clunky Excel-based applications. Tim in unsually transparent as an early stage founder. He shared: $3.5 million in seed funding raised just four months ago How many applications they process daily How many lenders use the platform The company’s ARR and target before raising more capital LendAPI connects with all three credit bureaus, loan servicing systems, and identity verification providers that you work with daily. Tim's vision is to become the "WordPress of lending"—making it easy for your clients to launch financial products without technical expertise. Where to find Tim: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothytli/ Substack (Tim’s build-in-public blog) https://substack.com/@lendapi LendAPIhttps://www.lendapi.com/ ***** A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:   Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo! https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=mar A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:   New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com   Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter:www.thefreetoaster.com/   Want to chat with Carlos Caro, our host? Find him at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

    1h 1m
  3. E020 - Guru Sethupathy, Founder & CEO at FairNow

    MAR 18

    E020 - Guru Sethupathy, Founder & CEO at FairNow

    In this episode, I catch up with my old Columbia PhD classmate Guru Sethupathy, founder of FairNow, an AI governance platform for financial services. About AI Governance: Involves three key components: Monitoring AI performance, explainability, and bias Ensuring compliance with financial regulations Establishing clear AI policies and procedures Why It Matters for FinTechs: Often viewed as a cost center but becomes a strategic advantage Becomes critically important during partner due diligence "Light touch" governance is better than scrambling reactively Risk of bias or compliance issues can be existential for startups Explainability Benefits: Meets regulatory requirements Improves customer experience Enhances operational understanding Helps identify performance optimization opportunities Resources: Learn more at fairnow.ai Contact: guru@fairnow.ai   A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:   Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo! https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=mar Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter:www.thefreetoaster.com/   Want to chat with Carlos Caro, our host? Email him at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

    40 min
  4. E019 - Greg Cox, Group CEO at Quint Group (Monevo)

    MAR 4

    E019 - Greg Cox, Group CEO at Quint Group (Monevo)

    In this episode, we speak with Greg Cox, CEO of Monevo, to discuss their recent acquisition by TransUnion and how they're transforming credit offer distribution. Greg explains how Monevo serves as a technology layer connecting lenders and publishers, allowing lenders to distribute highly qualified credit offers to third-party websites and aggregators. The platform helps lenders target the right customers across multiple digital channels while improving conversion rates.Highlights: How Monevo's technology handles model hosting and decisioning, with flexibility for lenders to host models with Monevo, TransUnion, or their own platforms Their extensive publisher network, including major players like Lending Tree, NerdWallet, Credit Karma, and Clear Score The company's bootstrapped journey from a £25,000 investment to a TransUnion acquisition How their solution dramatically reduces soft inquiry costs for lenders Different types of offers presented to consumers (pre-approved, pre-qualified, qualified) Future plans following the TransUnion acquisition, including expansion into new verticals beyond personal loans and credit cards Greg shares insights on how Monevo makes both lender and publisher relationships more efficient by improving approval rates, boosting monetization for publishers, and delivering better-qualified users to lenders - all while maintaining flexibility in commercial agreements that align with good outcomes for all parties.   A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:   Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo! https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=mar Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter:www.thefreetoaster.com/   Want to chat with Carlos Caro, our host? Email him at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

    40 min
  5. E018 - Rich Walker, Direct Mail Deep Dive

    FEB 11

    E018 - Rich Walker, Direct Mail Deep Dive

    Rich Walker is a 35-year industry vet who’s been responsible for over 10 billion pieces of Direct Mail. Rich has led direct marketing teams at Capital One, the Winterberry Group, Deluxe Corporation, 2nd Order Solutions, and more recently, Aven. He also ran his own consulting shop - Pilot Performance Marketing - focused on helping lenders solve Direct Mail. So we jumped at the opportunity to get his take on how lenders can leverage Direct Mail to grow their customer acquisition programs.   We Discuss: 1️⃣ Why Direct Mail still matters-$3B in spend per year-The power of pre-screened marketing2️⃣ Who should explore Direct Mail-High response, low LTV-Low response, high LTV-Breakdowns by product category3️⃣ Direct Mail vs. other channels-How does it compare to affiliate marketing?-Attribution and overlaps4️⃣ Unit economics-Cost per piece at scale (and subscale)-How costs breakdown by postage, data, creative/printing -Typical CACs & response rates5️⃣ The mechanics of a campaign-Checklist of how to go to market-Typical GTM timelines-How to go from 0 to in market in 8 weeks6️⃣ Building or renting a Direct Mail function-Case for keeping in-house-Case for out-sourcing7️⃣ Optimizing the 3 big levers-List (targeting and modeling)-Offer-Creative8️⃣ Ways to solve attribution-Invitation codes, QR codes, vanity URLs-GEO holdout tests9️⃣ The future of Direct Mail A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:   Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo! https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=feb Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter:www.thefreetoaster.com

    1h 40m

  6. FEB 4

    E017 - Congruence

    What is Congruence? Aligning messaging from your ad, to your landing page, to your final conversion steps creates lift in your marketing funnel, reducing your CACs and increasing your customer acquisition volumes. It sounds elementary. Yet many organizations forget to do it. Today we dig into examples of marketing from Wells Fargo and Discover to illustrate what it means to be Congruent across your marketing funnel. The visuals from our Newsletter will help:https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/congruence A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel: Streamline your lending application pages with 2-fields. To see a demo, click below to chat with their Head of Growth. https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=feb   Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter: www.thefreetoaster.com

    11 min
  7. E016 - Kevin Bennett, CEO at Further

    JAN 27

    E016 - Kevin Bennett, CEO at Further

    We chat with Kevin Bennett, a successful entrepreneur who helped grow Caribou to a billion-dollar company. Now, he's back with Further, a platform focused on helping people afford their first homes. Kevin shares important lessons for early-stage founders and gives practical advice for growing a business.   We Discuss: Product vs. Distribution: Kevin explains why both product development and getting your product to customers are equally important. Experimenting with Marketing: Kevin talks about the need to test different marketing channels and how to do it quickly. Evaluating Marketing Channels: Kevin shares a simple framework to decide if a marketing channel is worth investing in: Does it resonate with your audience? Can it scale as you grow? Are the economics (costs and returns) good? How stable is the channel or partnership? Speed and Cycle Time: Kevin emphasizes the need to test ideas fast and make decisions quickly. Strategic Partnerships: Kevin talks about the value of finding strong partners who can help your business grow. A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel: Streamline your lending application pages with 2-fields. If you’re anything like us, friction on application pages makes you nauseous. It makes your CACs go up. It makes your volumes drop. It causes your CFO and CEO to say mean things. The trouble is, application friction isn’t easy to fix. Your prod/eng is busy. We get it. Spinwheel’s APIs streamline a lending application form with just a phone number and a birthdate - like magic (but it’s really just smart tech)! Then you get a 20-30% lift in your application rate. Additionally, they can give you real-time, verified consumer credit data and seamless payment processing, which can help you serve customers beyond the initial application. To see a demo, click below to connect with their Head of Growth and see this thing in action. https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=jan Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter:www.thefreetoaster.com

    28 min
  8. E015 - Tomas Campos, CEO at Spinwheel

    JAN 9

    E015 - Tomas Campos, CEO at Spinwheel

    We sit with Tomas Campos, CEO at Spinwheel. Spinwheel’s product caught my attention because affiliate marketers could use their product to reduce the friction in their application processes.    Timestamps: (00:00) Meet Tomas Campos, CEO of Spinwheel  (02:30) Ideal customers and use cases (06:30) Success metrics (12:35) Challenges building the business (15:37) Partnering with lenders (22:41) Uplift from pre-filling application forms (28:12) What holds lenders back from buying (34:10) The NerdWallet integration (36:05) Other challenges lenders have (46:52) Bank account verification (47:10) Wrap up   Where to find Carlos: LinkedIn Twitter/X   Where to find Tomas: LinkedIn   Find Us: Don't forget to subscribe and review our show. If you’re interested in being a guest, email me at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com.

    49 min
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    The Free Toaster is your best resource at the intersection of marketing, lending, and fintech. We deliver news, data, and insights to help you acquire more customers.

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      thefreetoaster
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